KINDS OF short story PLOT
KINDS OF short story PLOT Various critics have said that all plots may be reduced to a few general classifications, ranging from four — those based upon Love, Identity, Hunger and Death 6- to thirteen, which need not be named here. However this may be, it is certain that the kinds cross each other in unending combinations for which writers are duly grateful. Six kinds — doubtless an imperfect grouping — will now be briefly examined : Plots based upon Surprise; Problem; Mystery; Mood or Emotion or Sentiment; Contrast; andSymbolism.Let it be remembered that these are only general groupings, and that a story is likely to exhibit more than one element . as well as any one of a thousand minor variations .° The danger is that the beginner takes a convenient grouping of this sort as a hard and fast classification. Nothing could be more unwise and nothing more deadening to invention. t. The Surprise Plot Here we have the simplest device of plot construction. The pride of the beginner is to produce the unexpected, frequently with a most unnatural result. That is the danger. It requires the exercise of sound sense to devise a genuine surprise for the reader and yet make the denouement perfectly natural, as in " Marjorie Daw," zfor example. In the following simple surprise plot the old device of two men and a woman — the three-cornered plot is used:8 A young woman falls in love with a man, but, being worldly-minded, she refuses his addresses because of his poverty. She leaves the country and some years pass. One day, while on a visit to a friend in the new land, she is introduced to her old lover. Her heart goes out to him irresistibly. He has grown rich and thereafter they meet frequently. Tacitly neither refers to the painful subject of their old life. He proposes at length and she accepts him, when it transpires that her fiancéis not her old lover at all, but his twin brother, of whose existence she dii not know' The injured brother appears on the scene, but she does not hold the love of either. 2. The Problem Plot Thisis a self-explanatory term. The magazines are full of problem stories — some serious, some humorous. Though not as popular as surprise stories they offer a more attractive field for the skilful writer, particularly for the psychologist. Sometimes the writer leaves the reader wondering how the characters met the issue — a dangerous device. Not every one can carry off a situation as Stockton did with " The Lady or the Tiger."10For months after that ingenious hoax was perpetrated upon the public, smart writers bombarded weary editors with one imitation after another until newspaper notices began to appear, warning young story-tellers that no such plots could be considered. Now and then the author tackles a problem which is too big for him. Then in self-defense he kills off the characters — a poor way tobeg the question." The three great dangers in choosing problem plots are : that the problem may not strike the reader as being vitally interesting; that the solution is likely to be apparent from the beginning; and that the author's solution may be unsatisfying. Let the tyro read Balzac's " La Grande Bretéche "— here are both surprise and problem handled by the master. The problem plot often takes up a character and concentrates a white light upon some typical life-crisis, with a swift suggestion of the upward or the downward path leading away from the crossroads of decision. Sometimes the problem is shown in the background, with the decision made long ago, or even just reached. Then the plot works out the after-effects — as in " The Delusion of Gideon Snell." 12Most stories dealing with the accusing conscience, or with retributive justice, belong to this class. 3. The Mystery Plot The detective story, the ghost story, and the plain mystery story, all deserve a fuller treatment than can here be given. Whether Poe modeled Monsieur Dupin's deductions upon the reasoning of Voltaire's clever Zadig is open to question, but it is certain that present-day writers acknowledge Poe as their preceptor in the realm of mystery. They all introduce the detective, amateur or professional, for the purpose of unraveling the mystery before the reader's very eyes and yet concealing the key- thread until the last. Sometimes the web of entanglement is woven also in full sight — with the author's , sleeves rolled up as a guarantee of good faith; and the closer you watch the less you see. As a character, the detective cannot be much more than a dummy. That is, his individuality cannot be brought out in a single short- story, except by a few bold strokes of delineation; but when he figures in a series of stories, as does Sherlock Holmes, the reader at length comes to know him quite well. In the detective plot, the author seems to match his wits against the detective's, by striving to concoct a mystery which presents an apparently impossible situation. It adds to his problem that he must leave the real clue in full sight, yet so disguised that the reader cannot solve the mystery before some casual happening, or the ingenuity of the detective, shows it to the reader at the proper moment. Of course, the detective always plays the winning game against the author, and this pleases the reader. If a murder is to be committed, the victim must not be permitted to win the reader's sympathy too fully, else the story becomes revolting. Then, too, the clues generally point to an innocent person, who is so interesting as to cause the reader to fear lest he or she should turn out to be the criminal. But you know the conventional situations well enough; to invest the old problems with new forms is the province of invention. The ghost-story calls for a single comment, and that shall be in the words of Mr. Julian Hawthorne ; ". • • a ghost story can be brought into our charmed and charming circle only if we have made up our minds to believe in the ghosts ; otherwise their introduction would not be a square deal. It would not be fair, in other words, to propose a conundrum on a basis of ostensible materialism, and then, when no other key would fit, to palm off a disembodied spirit on us. Tell me beforehand that your scenario is to include both worlds, and I have no objection to make ; I simply attune my mind to the more extensive scope. But I rebel at an unheralded ghostland, and declare that your tale is incredible." 13 As for the plain mystery story, its name is its exposition. It enjoys all the freedom possible to any short- story, its only requirements being those of ingenuity, interest, and denouement concealed until the close by hiding the real intrigue of the plot." 4. The Plot of Mood, Emotion, or Sentiment Do not forget that plot may deal with the internal man as really as with the external. There is an action of the soul more vital and intense than visible action ever could be. When the inner finds expression in the outer, you have a powerful combination. Here is a fine field for delicate treatment. Hawthorne and Poe are the masters in America, as yet unapproached ; Maupassant has never been equalled among the French. In stories of this type the plot is constructed so as to show setting, characters, and incidents, all colored by a dominant mood — like the sense of inevitable downfall in Poe's " The Tall of the House of Usher ; " or an emotion — like fear, in " A Coward," 15by Guy de Maupassant ; or a sentiment — like the quest of success, in Hawthorne's " The Great Carbuncle." All of these great stories, and most others by this trinity of fictionists, conform to Poe's requirement that the author should begin with a clear idea of the unified impression he desires to leave upon the reader, and then subordinate everything to this purpose. Naturally, plot and action will have a smaller place in the story of mood or sentiment than in the story of incident. 5. The Plot of Contrast isa favorite with many able writers because it yields such excellent opportunities for character drawing. In Bret Harte's " The Outcasts of Poker Flat," two gamblers and two dissolute women, having been driven out of Poker Flat, a western mining camp, fall in with an unsophisticated young man and the young girl whom he is about to marry. They are all snowed in by a terrible blizzard, and the story of how their privations reveal their best and their worst qualities, even down to the last unavailing struggle with death, is a masterpiece of contrast, and one of the finest of American short- stories. Contrast of characters may serve as foundation for contrasting environment and incident. The sharp distinctions of extremes, as well as the more delicate contrasts noticeable in closely related ideas and things, will be found full of suggestiveness to the writer whose eye is open to see them as they really are. 6. The Plot of Symbolists The lofty ground taken by Hawthorne in his short- stories is nowhere more evident than in his symbolic fictions — in which he makes things, events, or characters stand for abstract truths. Yet this purpose in Hawthorne " is saved from abstractness by being conveyed through appropriate physical images . . . as the bright butterfly in The Artist of the Beautiful,' and the little hand on the cheek of Aylmer's wife (` The Birthmark '). Such an idea is jotted down in its most general form:— " To symbolize moral or spiritual disease by disease of the body ; as thus — when a person committed any sin, it might appear in some form on the body — this to be brought out." 16 The plot of symbolism always results in a didactic story — one which plainly seeks to teach a lesson. To be worth reading it must be very well done indeed. Few writers possess the skill, sincerity and power of Bunyan and Hawthorne. While the public is commonly supposed to be more ready to take its medicines when sugarcoated as fiction, still most symbolic short-stories are failures. Speaking generally, it is better to let the story teach its lesson by inference, unless the symbolism is very delicately suggested. Kipling's " They " may safely be taken as a model for the symbolic short-story.